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story, in obedience to the impulses of character and temperament which from start to finish govern the actions of her personages. While in no distinctive way a novel of character, character dominates incident and gives it a rich, warm flavor of humanity.

Mr. Wingfield's "Maid of Honor" is notable for its striking portrait of a French Mephistopheles, the Abbé Pharamond. It is characteristically French in this, that to the passion for evil for its own sake is added the lust of the flesh, the lubricous temperament which the Gallic mind inevitably drags into situation and character when it contemplates human wickedness, a tendency which the English imitator seems bound to respect in his study of French social conditions. The slime of the serpent must always go with his bite. His sister-in-law, the Marchioness de Gange, is practically left under his charge at a country château, and the abbé proceeds at once to envelop her with his subtle nets of solicitation. Fortunately a passionless and coldly virtuous woman, she has but little trouble in resisting the tempter, though her conjugal arts are not sufficient to retain the affections of her husband, who is a devotee of Mesmer, and who, if not quite a boneless and flabby fool, is altogether a contemptible personage. One could almost excuse a wife for unfaithfulness to such an emasculated partner. Failing the power to seduce, Abbé Pharamond enters into a plot to destroy the heroine and secure her patrimony, a plot into which the marquis is a half unwilling accomplice through the control held over his mind by his more intellectual brother. The endangered heroine is finally rescued by the help of a Jacobin leader (the story is laid in the period of the French Revolution, though we get only side glimpses of its main movements), and the wicked brethren become the victims of the enraged populace during an emeute. So the deus ex machina is found in a revolutionary mob. One does not find much fascination in the nexus of the story, though it is very well told. The marchioness is a decidedly uninteresting person, in whose fate we take little interest, except as she affords material for the audacious deviltries of Abbé Pharamond. In this character the author works con amore to model a unique image of wickedness, and with some measure of suc

cess.

He is the redeeming feature of the story, if it be proper to use a qualifying word in this case, so suggestive on the ethical as

well as the literary side. It is proper to say
that the title of the book is derived from the
far-fetched reason that the heroine had been
maid of honor to the queen.

A much more interesting Mephistopheles
than the super-subtile abbé, and not without a
suggestion of the soutane, however, comes to
light in Mr. Egerton Castle's "Conse-
quences," We are not familiar with this
writer's work, but if he is a novice he has
made a decidedly clever beginning, fresh in
its initial conception and quite original in.
its methods. The notion of a hero expurging
himself and becoming a legal nobody by a
craftily devised pretence of suicide, that he
may reappear as a somebody else in after
years amid the surroundings of his early life,
is not altogether new in fiction, but it has
not been worn threadbare. It may be readily
seen that the motif is capable of very effective
treatment. Captain George Kerr, an English
officer, who disappears from the world that
knows him because he is disappointed in his
Spanish wife Carmen, again makes his entry
on the stage as Colonel David Fargus, an ex-
Confederate cavalry leader from America,
whose sword had made him famous. We
find the cause of the remarkable step of self-
effacement altogether insufficient, but it will
serve as well as another in introducing the
action of the comedy. Colonel Fargus dis-
covers that he had been a fool, and that his
beautiful Carmen had left a boy, who had
grown up and become an English soldier.
The unknown father attaches himself to the
son, and among the earliest of his paternal
offices he seconds him in a sabre duel with a
German university student, who is promptly
dissected in a style that makes the colonel
believe his offspring a true chip of the old
block. We do not reach the thick of the plot
till the elder brother of the pseudo-Fargus
dies intestate and without children, leaving a
handsome rent-roll. Who is next of kin ?
George Kerr is dead, and Colonel Fargus, for
more than one reason, cannot bring him to
life again. Lewis Kerr, his son, is supposed
to be the heir. Now enter Mephistopheles,
not in red or through a trap-door, but in the
sedate garb of a learned college don, an Ox-
ford fellow, a man of distinguished parts, and
outwardly the pink of snug propriety. The
demon is hidden under the very English ex-
terior of Mr. Charles Hillyard, the son of a
sister of George Kerr, and whose very brill-

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iant brains are entirely undiluted by any principle except that of self-love. Lewis, on the point of entering into possession of the property, receives a letter from a London law firm indicating the possession of letters on the part of Hillyard which circumstantially prove that the former was the son not of George Kerr's wife, but of his mistress, and therefore not competent to be his uncle's heir. Fargus now realizes the logic of consequences," in the fact that his idolized son risks disinheritance on the score of illegitimacy from his own past folly, and that he, the only one who could explain the true meaning of the dangerous documents, is legally

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dead. All the resources of his craft and courage are, however, stimulated to the utmost by paternal love to fight a losing battle to a victory. Hillyard to his amazement, for he can discover no motive, soon learns that his true opponent in the duel is not his cousin, but his cousin's mentor. It is scarcely needful to dull the edge of the reader's curiosity by retailing the thrust and parry of two daring and well-matched fencers. Each learns to respect the other's prowess in this battle of wits, and if Colonel Fargus finally disarms his opponent without revealing his identity to the world, it is only by the accident which always justifies, in novels at least, Milton's dictum, "Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just." The somewhat vulgar and un-Miltonic accident in this case comes through the agency of a pretty barmaid, who had loved the sly college don "not wisely but too well."

The conception of Hillyard, the Oxford scholar, who carries parallel with his keen love of science and letters and a genuine intellectual pre-eminence the tastes of the voluptuary and the arts of the scoundrel, is a strong piece of character work, well worked out in detail and studied with notable literary art. The cynical indifference of one so well established in his own superiority that he despises the opinions of those who have learned that he is a hypocrite is warmed, too, with a touch of humanity in keeping with the cynicism. The beaten gamester at the last discovers that his plebeian mistress, she who had been the principal agent in his defeat, has a genuine hold on his corrupt heart; and he makes her an honest woman, in utter defiance of his own interests and worldly convention, because it so pleased him. An interesting minor complication of fresh fancy is that the woman beloved by Lewis Kerr had already fallen desperately in love with the

gallant ex-Confederate hero, Colonel Fargus, still a youngish man in the prime of life. But there we have said enough. Let the reader take a taste of the pudding and find out the rest of the plums for himself.

us.

The Marquis of Lorne possesses the merits of having husbanded an English princess, of having made a respectable Governor-General of Canada, and of being the heir of a dukedom and the future head of the Campbells. His ambition, however, leads him to crave laurels which are not accidental; and he has sought to struggle up the cliffs of Parnassus and seek fellowship with the muses with the sincere self-confidence which sometimes makes mediocrity respectable. Our noble author is fortunate in this, that he has no reputation to risk by writing poor fiction, Candor forces us to hint that, had his prefix been a plebeian title, he would have found it difficult to have found any shrewd practitioner in literary ob. stetrics to have presided at the birth of the infant in the case of the alleged novel before The book is without point, and the only feature at all interesting (something, by the way, which has only casual connection with the story) is a description of a remarkable cave on the seaboard of Northern Scotland, which is rather good. How the fair American heroine meets, loves, and espouses a youthful Scot whom she meets in California constitutes the whole of the story, which is unillumined by any scintilla of romance or by any penetrating insight into matters which the world cares for. Why this prosaic narrative should have commended itself to the fancy of the author one seeks in vain to guess. "From Shadow to Sunlight" has at least the minor merit of being short. It was an ancient boast of the Clan Campbell, "It is a far cry to Sochow." We may say, too, that it is a long stretch from the well-marked talent of the Duke of Argyle, who has made himself honored as a scholar and thinker, to the mediocrity of his eldest son, who seeks to disport himself in the more airy and elegant fields of letters. It is, however, an infinitely better and manlier way of dispelling ennui than im. posing heavy "baccarat" on his friends, as the price to be paid for the honor of his society. The public at least are not compelled to buy and read any particular book.

ON THE STAGE AND OFF. The Brief Career of a Would-be Actor. By Jerome K. Jerome. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Among the recent English writers who have

risen to place among the minor notabilities, Mr. Jerome must be included. That humor of the better vein which seeks the kinship of mirth rather than that of satire, and is not devoid of sympathy with the faults at which it laughs so pleasantly, is not so common that we can afford to let it pass. Mr. Jerome is a gracious and kindly jester, and he wears the cap and bells in the exercise of a mood without the like of which the world would be a far more doleful place. He has found fitting field for the exercise of his talents in the domain of stage-land, and the pleasant little book before us shows he has plenty more to say on the same subject. The present sketches relate the common professional experiences of the actor, and are full of lively incidents and amusing pictures, some of which are as good in their way as the stage experiences of Nicholas Nickleby. The book appears to have been derived from personal history and not from observation, and of course is all the better for this reason. It does not sparkle with the strong and powerful quality of the writer's earlier writing, but it is racy and entertaining. Ulysses does not always bend his bow.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

THE Athenæum notices with marked approbation and with no reservation of comment a short story by Mr. Frank Harris, the editor of the Fortnightly Review, published in the last number of that periodical, entitled "A Modern Idyl." We do not propose to discuss the literary value of the story here, but only to make a passing reflection in wonder that the staid Atheneum should have failed to call attention to the abominable indecency and want

"Mirèio"

Harriet Preston's translation of
(Mireille) by Frédéric Mistral, the French
Provençal poet, a work in a new school of
French poetry, which excited at the time great
enthusiasm, and from which Gounod took the
theme of an opera. This Provençal renais.
sance, known as the Félibrige, "lou rièi
paire de Felibre," has produced several brill-
iant additions to the literature of France,
butt he founder of it, who died recently, is
less well known than some of his disciples.
Joseph Roumanille died at Avignon on May
24th. He was born August 8th, 1818, at St.
Remy, where his father was a gardener. Edu-
cated at Tarascon, he went to Avignon in 1845
as tutor in a school, where one of his scholars
was Frédéric Mistral. His first volume of
poems-a volume which dates the beginning
of the movement which has added a beautiful
modern literature to the beautiful early liter-
ature of the Troubadours-was Li Mar-
garideto" (1847). This was followed by "Li
Capelan" (1851), "Li Provenzalo" (1852),
"Li Souniarello " (1852), La Part de Dieu"
(1853), “La Campana Mountado” (1857),
"Li Nouvè" (1865), Li Flour de Sàuvi,"
"Lis Entarro-chin'' (1874), and "Fau i'ana."
In 1864 a collected edition of Roumanille's
works in verse and prose was published in
two volumes, Lis Oubreto en Vers'' and

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Lis Oubreto en Proso." In 1883 a volume of tales was issued under the name of Li Conte Prouvençau e li Cascareleto." Roumanille, who was a bookseller, was his own publisher, and the publisher of the works of

Mistral and most of the other Félibres. The charm of Roumanille's work lies in its quaint and simple freshness, its delicious humor, its absence of literary artifice.

His songs

flavor of folk-tales. It is not literature that one reads, it is spoken words that one hears, it is the people singing at their work. Tales like "Lou Curat de Cucugnan" ("Le Curé de Cucugnan," well known in Daudet's French version) and “Lou Abat Tabuissoun" (“ L'Abbé Tabuisson") have the exquisite and perfectly pious irreverence of the monkish legends of the Middle Ages, with little that betrays a modern origin.

of taste, not to use stronger terms, shown by have the flavor of folk-songs, his tales the the author. The story is simply that of an adulterous courtship between an American minister and the wife of his principal deacon. The way in which religious ecstasy and licentious passion are commingled is worthy of the most advanced disciples of the new French school. A self-respecting critic would far better run the risk of being called a Philistine than express anything but disgust at such a flagrant insult to all the established decencies. This short story contains more callous immorality than "Madame Bovary'' Mademoiselle de Maupin." There is not a reputable magazine in the United States which would dare to publish such a story.

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MANY of our readers will remember Miss

On June 3d Messrs. Sotheby sold the autograph Mss, of Wilkie Collins's plays, together with the copyright and fees accruing therefrom. Appended to the same catalogue are a number of autograph letters, chiefly of literary interest, including the original agreement

between Dickens and Bentley for the copyright of Barnaby Rudge." The price, apparently, was £2000, with an additional £1000 if the sale exceeded ten thousand copies, and a final sum of £1000 more if the sale exceeded fifteen thousand.

AMONG Some autograph letters to be sold by auction shortly will be a curious contract between Charles Dickens and Richard Bentley, dated January 28th, 1839, in which Dickens agrees to allow his name to appear on the title-page of Bentley's Miscellany in return for £40 a month, and this did not include any editing or literary work, but merely the use of his name. Though the arrangement was never carried out, the agreement is a striking proof of the popularity of Dickens, even at the time when he had only produced two booksviz., "The Pickwick Papers" and "Oliver Twist."

A NEW journal of a special character is about to be founded in San Francisco. One of its projectors, an Oxford graduate who has been for some years a journalist in the States, has conceived the idea that Americans do not know the actual feeling of Englishmen toward their country because many of the existing American newspapers misrepresent it. He will, therefore, seek in his new enterprise to tell Americans what Englishmen really think about them. He will also try to show Englishmen what is the actual opinion of educated Americans respecting English institutions. In his view, American feeling toward England is not fairly expressed by much of the existing American press.

AFTER the Piot library is dispersed (Athenæum, No. 3316) there will be a sale at the Hôtel Drouot (on June 6th) of some valuable books and Mss. belonging to a well-known private collector. Among these are three notable illuminated Mss. One belongs to the early days of the thirteenth century, and is of the French school; another, of the Flemish school, may be assigned to the last decade of the fourteenth; the third, and most important, is the Book of Hours of Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia). This is the only volume bearing his arms which has been preserved, and it is a marvel of the art of the illuminators of Bruges, dating about 1495. The next number of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts will contain a notice by M. Pawlowski of the Borgia Ms. He is of opinion that the finest miniatures

in it are from the hand of Gerard David, of Bruges.

DR. HERMANN ADLER, who was recently elected Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire, has made several contributions to literature. In 1863, immediately after the publication of Dr. Colenso's famous book, he addressed a series of letters to the Athenæum in reply. The letters were followed by a volume entitled "A Jewish Reply to Dr. Colenso's Criticism on the Pentateuch," of which he was joint author. He has engaged in controversy with Professor Max Müller relative to his Westminster Abbey lecture on missions, and with Professor Goldwin Smith, whose charges of "incivism" he answered in the Nineteenth Century. Several lectures and articles of his on Talmudic themes have been published, likewise an essay on "Solomon Ibn Gebirol, the Poet Philosopher," and also more than one volume of sermons. Dr. Adler has occupied himself much with the early history of the Jews in England, and contributed a monograph on the Chief Rabbis of England to the publications in connection with the AngloJewish Historical Exhibition. He intends editing the "Etz Chaim," a work on Jewish law and ritual, written by Jacob, the son of Judah, Episcopus of London, shortly before the expulsion, the manuscript of which is in the Raths-Bibliotek of Leipzig.

THE forthcoming work by the Hon. George Curzon, M.P., on Persia, will not be published till the autumn. It will fill two large volumes. An entirely new map of Persia is in course of preparation for it, and it will contain several other maps and nearly a hundred illustrations, and a bibliography of Persian history, geography, and travel. It is not intended to be so much a record of the author's travels as a compendium of information about modern Persia and a history of the steps by which in recent years that country has been brought within the pale of civilization. There will be chapters on the Shah, royal family, ministers, government, institutions and reforms, revenue, resources, army, trade, communications, as well as accounts of all the principal provinces and cities, and the recent results of archaeological research.

MAY 9TH, which was the day of Schiller's death, seems to have become a favorite day for adding to the treasures of the Schillerhaus

at Marbach, which is the national property of the German people. On May 9th last year the heiresses of Schiller's daughter-in-law (who died in 1869) presented twelve family portraits which she had bequeathed to them. On the same anniversary this year Dr. Steiner, of Stuttgart, presented to the Schillerhaus thirteen letters of Christophine Reinwald, the poet's sister.

MR. GOSSE has undertaken to write the article "Poetry" for the new edition of Chambers's Encyclopædia.

A GERMAN philologist of note has just passed away in the person of Dr. Karl Andresen. Born 1813, in Holstein, he occupied several distinguished posts in the scholastic world, and was in 1874 appointed "Professor Extraordinary'' at Bonn. Dr. Andresen was the author of the excellent works, "Volksetymologie" and "Sprachgebrauch und Sprachrichtigkeit im Deutschen," both of which enjoy high esteem and great popularity. He was particularly distinguished by a most genial disposition, which made him a great favorite with his colleagues and his pupils.

WE understand that Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, the author of two well-known volumes on "Citizen Soldiers'' and "The Brain of an Army," are preparing in collaboration a popular work upon National and Imperial Defence. Account will be taken of the military and naval needs of the empire, and of the extent and cost of the resources which exist to meet them, while suggestions will be made for greater efficiency and economy. Messrs. Macmillan & Co. will be the publishers.

THE attempt to stop Professor Max Müller's Gifford Lectures at Glasgow has failed. In the Glasgow Presbytery the charge of heresy was defeated by seventeen to five votes, and the General Assembly dismissed the appeal made to it. Professor Max Müller will next year deliver his last course on " Psychological Religion." His third course, delivered this year, on Anthropological Religion," is in

the press.

MISCELLANY.

THE HUMOR OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.In " 'Our Boys and Girls at School," Mr. Henry J. Barker has published, through Mr. Arrowsmith, another budget of the absurdities committed by boys and girls who are crammed with undigested knowledge at our elementary

schools. The mistress of a poor village school in Sussex (Mr. Barker says) was the recipient of a most remarkable piece of juvenile information. The lady had been giving the younger girls a lesson on the tenses of verbs, and, at the close of her discourse, she requested the children to write down in their exercise books a few examples of the manner in which the tenses may be changed. The mistress then walked round the desks and overlooked her pupils while they were studiously engaged with their exercises. Presently she drew near to a rustic little nymph who was intimating by her raised hand and jubilant countenance that she had completed her example of one of these tense changes. When the mistress arrived at the child's desk and looked down at what was written, her own hands immediately became elevated with astonishment as she read:-"The verb To be. Past tense-I was a baby. Future tense-I shall have a baby."

The following extract from an essay on "The Moon" affords-in defiance of its title —some most interesting glimpses of sublunary home-life-"To look at the white moon shinin threw your winder at night, sitting on the edge of the bed, and lissnin to your father and mother's knives and forks rattlin on their

plates while they are getting their niced suppers, is the prittist site you ever seed. When it's liver and hunyens there a having, you can smell it all the way upstairs. It looks very brite and nearly all white. Once when they was a having Fried fish and potaters I crept out of my bedroom to the top of the stares all in the dark, just so as to have a better lissen and a nearer smell. I forget weather there was a moon that night. I dont think as there was, cose I got to the top of the stares afore I new I was there, and I tumbled right down to the bottom of the stares, a bursting open the door at the bottom, and rolling into the room nearly as far as the supper table. My father thote of giving me the stick for it, but he let my mother give me a bit of fish on some bread, and told me to skittle off to bed again. I am sure there was not no moon, else I should have seed there wasnt a top stare when I put my foot out slow. I only skratted my left eye and ear a bit with that last bump at the bottom, witch was a hard one. Stares are steeper than girls think, speshilly where the corner is."

In the course of an examination in grammar, a Surrey inspector was the privileged recipient of some most edifying (or startling) in

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